Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Art happens in Junkyards and container camps. The container afterall as Tim O'Reilly says they are the new Garages for our times. HP had its garage we have our container. Funny to be here late into the wee hours of the morning hacking away at what might be a new look at energy. Its good to take a moment to remember why we are here. The fuel economy is killing us so how can artists pick it apart, turn it on its head and bring a new idea forth. Where will we be in a few weeks time, after we have built this slug on the desert, will the idea we have spread?

These musings spurred by a late night power outage: the genny just ran out of fuel.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

The title is inspired by some rather bad butt rock that we are playing here tonight to inspire our building until the wee hours of the night. I don't know the logic but there are those here who believe in butt rock as a melody that inspires motivation to work. I'm not sure if I share that logic, but all of those forgotten hits of my youth are now stuck on an endless loop in my head. Maybe that is a study we could inspire, does butt rock motivate shop work? I do have to admit that butt rock is completely appropriate for building a landspeed slug that runs on Bullshit. Really what else would fit?

Enough of walking down butt rock memory lane. We are really here to talk about a landspeed slug that is only days away from rolling around the playa inspiring those other black rock citizens that they too could run their vehicle on bullshit and make it go.

We have our Lister genny ready to go, thank goodness, the Orange whisperwatt in the yard just wouldn't have looked right in the slug. The Lister has the certain Je n'sais quoi. As for other sexy things the NASCAR slick arrived. Do you think we will get to much flack from Burner nazis that we are advertizing or will they maybe get it; the gear head hotrod fetish we are playing with. Most likely they won't. I can imagine explaining it all week to self appointed moral Burners that yes we know we are "advertising" Goodyear but it is sort of the point of the project.

Friday, August 3, 2007

We spent part of this week figuring out our lighting system that will run off of the fuel created by our gasifier. And it worked the very first time we ran it. That doesn't happen often and by mentioning it I hope I am not jinxing it. But I'll proceed to push my luck by also mentioning that not only did it work but it produced beautiful blue and violet flame (a natural characteristic of burning hydrogen).

The framework of the piece continues to be as beautiful as it is functional. Who knows how many times I will say it, but we really are lucky to have Dann building this project with us.

Monday, July 30, 2007

We continue to forge ahead with the longest land-speed slug in history. Then again has there ever been one to compare it to? If you find any references to land-speed slugs please post them, because I think we are on to something interesting if you didn't already suspect that. I won't say unique because as soon as I do I'll be proven wrong, so I'll settle for interesting or maybe even innovative.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

It seems that we have been battling and building, and haven't had much time for reflecting or sharing what we have been up to with our project, The Mechabolic, the landspeed slug. A piece that will show us how to solve our trash problem to deal with our fuel problem. It will scavenge the dessert for Burner refuse to create its own energy, and then it will use its by product to grow orchids and tomatoes. Sounds like fun doesn't it.

As it stands now the Mechabolic's framework is mostly complete. It has a mighty frame to move up on, thanks for the beauty of its design goes to Dann Davis who not only devised something structural, but beautiful. So Beautiful in fact we had to redesign the floor of the Slug to be transparent so it can be admired. In the next coming weeks we will be focused on filling out the innards of the Slug, the lungs, the veins, the chipper, etc.